New Delhi: The repair and reconstruction of Gurdwara Dashmesh Pita in Kabul, which was badly damaged during an attack carried out by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) on June 18, are in their final leg with the Taliban providing funds and engineers, according to an Indian Express report quoting members of the Sikh and Hindu communities in the country.The gurudwara, with all the repair work done, will be ready for devotees to use by August end.The attack on the biggest gurudwara in Afghanistan in the second week of June not only killed two people and left three injured but also resulted in panic-stricken Hindus and Sikhs hurriedly applying for Indian visas to leave the country. In 2020, the estimated number of Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan was 650, which has further reduced in the past year after the Taliban took over power in August 2021.More than 150 Afghan Sikhs said they “desperately” wanted to move to India in the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack on June 18, according to The Hindu.“Their own people [the Taliban], including engineers, came here, assessed the damage, made the calculations and gave us the money,” Ram Saran Bhasin, who heads the Hindu-Sikh society in Kabul and is supervising the work, told Indian Express.He also said that the Taliban regime had given 40 lakh Afghan rupees for the reconstruction and the project had been entirely funded by them. “We didn’t raise any other funds,” Bhasin said, adding that it was their priority to have the “No.1 gurudwara” in Kabul “up and running as soon as possible”.The Indian Express report, giving an account of the ongoing work at the gurudwara, said Afghan workers were busy painting walls, cutting marble panels, laying floor tiles and doing finishing touches to the Takht in the middle of the main congregation hall where the holy book Guru Granth Sahib will be placed. The gurudwara is now heavily guarded by security personnel.Also read: Two Killed in Blasts at Kabul Gurudwara; ‘Cowardly Attack,’ Says JaishankarThe deep pockmarks on the massive iron gate at the entrance and on the walls of the assembly hall bear testimony to the gunbattle between an IS attacker and a Taliban group which reached the spot soon after the assault began on June 18. The offices abutting the main hall in the gurudwara went up in flames and fire engines rushed to the spot to douse the massive fire from further spreading. According to Bhasin, the Sikh holy book was retrieved without damage and taken safely to the house of a Sikh family nearby.From August 2021, when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, India has flown out a number of Sikhs except for 100 of them who still live in the country in the shadow of fear. Several of them were also evacuated even in the immediate aftermath of the June 18 attack in Kart-e-Parwan.Three members of the Afghan Sikh community holding the holy Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji (holy book of Sikh community) from different Gurudwaras in Afghanistan at the Kabul airport for their departure to India. Photo: PTI/@kishanreddybjpAccording to the estimates, the population of Sikhs and Hindus stood at 650 until 2020. However, a majority of them – about 400 – left the country after the 2018 IS attack on Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib in Kabul’s Shor Bazar that killed 25 people. Since then, a number of Hindus and Sikhs who moved to Delhi frequently visited Kabul to look after their businesses. But the latest attack forced them either to rely on their Afghan friends to look after their businesses or to relocate to Europe or Canada.Bhasin, who has been made the acting pradhan of the Kart-e-Parwan gurdwara, is from a small community of 15 Hindu families who now live in Afghanistan. He now lives in Kabul with his wife while his children are away in India.Over 100 e-visas on priority were given to Hindus and Sikhs soon after the June 18 attack. Some of them, however, still wait desperately to leave Afghanistan.“The Taliban have not troubled us, but these are tough times for us,” Sukhbir Singh Khalsa, who is waiting for his Indian visa, told Indian Express. “We have been told it will come in two weeks.”Meanwhile, the Taliban has appealed to Hindus and Sikhs not to leave the country while assuring support. A day after the June 18 attack, officials from the ministry of internal affairs visited the gurudwara to meet with the community members and to provide financial assistance to the next of kin of those killed and to the injured. While the families of the deceased had been given one lakh Afghan rupees, 50,000 Afghan rupees was provided to the injured. On the other hand, the officials had given 1.5 lakh Afghan rupees for the immediate maintenance of the gurudwara, Gurnam Singh, president of Gurdwara Karta-E-Parwan, told the Times of India. On the other hand, when members of PCT Humanity, a Dubai-based philanthropic organisation, called on the ministers and the top officials of the Taliban government they were told that it would be a “disgrace” to Afghanistan if the remaining Hindus and Sikhs leave the country and the administration would do everything possible for the panic-stricken communities to live in Afghanistan.